Two out of Three ain’t bad

The long-awaited big screen version of “The Three Stooges” might finally be coming to fruition.

Film siblings The Farrelly Brothers (“There’s Something About Mary”) tell IGN FilmForce that they hope to film the long-in-development redo next March.

“The Stooges is something we’ve wanted to do for years and years,” says Peter Farrelly. “It’s a very tricky movie to get made. I’m not sure why, but usually our best movies are, so I’m happy about that. If they make it right away, usually something’s wrong, it’s too easy. This movie took five years to get made, Dumb and Dumber took five years to get made, Mary was not easy to get made. And this one, The Stooges has just been a nightmare, because it’s, there’s nothing like The Stooges now. It’s a lot of hitting. And studios are confused. It’s like, ‘How does this work and who sees it and who’s it for and when does it take place and how do you maintain it?

“We took a long time to write this script. It took us, like, two years but we, finally cracked it. We’re doing four 20-minute episodes. So, it’s a short movie. It’s an hour twenty, which is really all you need for The Stooges. And each episode begins where the last one left off, but they hold together as twenty minute bits and each one begins, you know, they had four theme songs. [He hums the four] And they had two in-between that were combinations. So each one will begin with that. And it will be an old time matinee feeling. And we’re thinking of going with complete unknowns or whoever the best actors are. We’re thinking of opening the field to everybody and just seeing who the best guys are.”

As for who is going to play the lead roles, Farrelly says Benicio Del Toro and Jeff Daniels are currently frontrunners for the roles of Moe and Larry, respectively. It’s believed that Farrelly has also been keen on Russell Crowe for the role of Moe as well..

Don’t expect to see Shemp in the film though, he says.

“It’s Moe, Larry and Curly. No Shemp”, but there will be another main cast member – a woman. “There’s a really good female role. Kind of a bad girl role. That will be really fun to cast. I’m not sure who we’ll go with, but it’s a great role.”

How soon can we expect Stooges on the big screen? “We want to shoot it in March and we want it out a year from now”.